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Raga fire, 1 November 2025 Raga

Out · last detection 27 Nov 2025, 23:53 UTC

The fire started on 1 November 2025 in Raga, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 36,496 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 32th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 431 with a page). Number 26 in South Sudan in 2025, of 292.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Raga · 2021Raga · 2021Raga · 2022Raga · 2025

Burnt area
36,496ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
26days
1 Nov 2025 – 26 Nov 2025
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
1 Nov
2025
Heat detections
736
in a single hotspot: 136 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Average daily power
315MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Nov26 Nov
27 Nov 2025

How it evolved, day by day

1 Nov 2025 · 9 MW · 3 3 Nov 2025 · 858 MW · 46 4 Nov 2025 · 89 MW · 13 5 Nov 2025 · 168 MW · 13 6 Nov 2025 · 7 MW · 3 7 Nov 2025 · 389 MW · 28 8 Nov 2025 · 377 MW · 33 9 Nov 2025 · 1,631 MW · 122 10 Nov 2025 · 972 MW · 94 11 Nov 2025 · 1,328 MW · 102 12 Nov 2025 · 7 MW · 7 13 Nov 2025 · 219 MW · 32 14 Nov 2025 · 105 MW · 19 15 Nov 2025 · 247 MW · 48 16 Nov 2025 · 84 MW · 31 17 Nov 2025 · 25 MW · 5 18 Nov 2025 · 13 MW · 4 19 Nov 2025 · 125 MW · 28 20 Nov 2025 · 594 MW · 37 21 Nov 2025 · 437 MW · 42 22 Nov 2025 · 56 MW · 14 23 Nov 2025 · 6 MW · 2 24 Nov 2025 · 6 MW · 1 26 Nov 2025 · 119 MW · 6 27 Nov 2025 · 6 MW · 3
1 Nov 6 Nov 9 Nov 10 Nov 14 Nov 18 Nov 22 Nov 27 Nov

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

38°high
43km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

59% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,140 ha in 2016, 2,634 ha in 2017, 266 ha in 2018, 955 ha in 2019, 2,483 ha in 2020, 10,921 ha in 2021, 6,968 ha in 2022, 1,429 ha in 2023, 3,722 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 21,385 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 23% of the area of London (365 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Raga where it started
    36,847 ha reached on 1 Nov
    0.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
1 Nov 34.8 °C 22 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Nov 36.6 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Nov 35.6 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Nov 35.5 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Nov 37.1 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Nov 36.4 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Nov 37.1 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Nov 37.2 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Nov 36.6 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
10 Nov 36.4 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Nov 36.9 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Nov 36.7 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Nov 37.3 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Nov 35.9 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
15 Nov 33.4 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
16 Nov 33.6 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Nov 34.4 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Nov 35.8 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Nov 36.6 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Nov 36.5 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
21 Nov 36.1 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Nov 36.8 °C 9 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Nov 37.4 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Nov 37.6 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Nov 36.9 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
26 Nov 36.6 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
27 Nov after 36.5 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
28 Nov after 35.4 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
29 Nov after 36.4 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
30 Nov after 36.8 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
1 Dec after 36.5 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
2 Dec after 35.8 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
3 Dec after 35.9 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Dec after 36.3 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Dec after 36.9 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
6 Dec after 37.0 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 25 Oct 2025
After · 3 Dec 2025

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 11 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 109 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 47: 3.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak109 µg/m³
Days over the guideline15 days
PM10140 µg/m³
Optical depth0.73
12345678910111213141516171819202122232425
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 736Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in South Sudan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Raga fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 November 2025 to 26 November 2025 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 November 2025 to 22 November 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 36,496 hectares (365.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Raga (36,847 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of South Sudan (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 22 November 2025 → 26 November 2025.
  2. Start date: 3 November 2025 → 1 November 2025.

RSS Changes to this page

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 November 2025 to 22 November 2025. 736 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.